Programs won't use internet connection? *UPDATED*

[TheGrandHooHa]

I have an interesting problem with my friend's computer. I've seen it before, but cannot remember how I got around it.

Recently, his dad installed a bingo program, and after he installed it, his programs will not use his dial up connection. I dialed in, and it connects fine, but when you try to access a page in Internet Explorer, or sign in with AOL, or anything internet-related, it doesn't use the connection at all: just sits for a while and then says "404 Not Found" or "Failed to connect to AIM Service" or what have you. It's like it doesn't know that it's connected already. I went through Internet Options on the control panel, as well as his dialup settings, and everything is in order. His internet provider assured me that everything is OK on their end, which I believe, because one of my other friends connects fine through the same provider.

He is using Windows 98. Any ideas about fixing this? I *COULD* try using a registry restore, but I am not sure how recent of one is available. Are there any reasons why programs would not use a connection? He is not on a network/LAN or anything, so I am out of ideas.



Thanks in advance,
TGHH

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: I have tried reinstalling Dialup Networking and TCP/IP to no avail. Programs still refuse to "use" the connection. I am about to just upgrade it to Win2k and solve all the problems. Any other things to try before I upgrade it?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Check the proxy settings in IE. Check that it's set to use the dialup account that's configured. Check whether you can ping www.yahoo.com from a command prompt after manually dialling in.

It may also be that the bingo app has hijacked the dialup account information. Are you sure it's dialling the right number for the ISP still? It could be dialling a toll line charging at 35 dollars a minute, and not giving you Net access since they're going to make money every time you try to get online (cheaper to just make the money from those few calls than to run an actual ISP on the other side to keep you connected a long time).

You may just need to delete the dialup account and reconfigure it.

 

[oustedone]

You may also want to check the add and remove programs list for spyware programs. They modify your tcp/ip settings, One real bad one is Newdotnet. There are alot of programs that are installed when you istall filesharing programs ie kazaa, grokster,morpheus etc., etc., gator products etc that modify tcp/ip settings to track your internet usage. Use Ad Aware to find these offending products but i would advise you to not let it clean them until you uninstall the application first. If you let adaware strip the registry of the entries before you uninstall the program I have seen leave the internet connection broken. This is of course after you have recreated the dial up account, Uninstall and reinstall dial up networking and the TCP/IP protocol. Good luck! Rick

 

[TheGrandHooHa]

Lord Evermore: I checked out the proxy settings and the dial-up numbers/account info. Everything is in order there.

oustedone: I never thought of checking for Spy-/Ad-ware. I didn't think stuff like that had migrated to retail (albiet budget) products, but I guess I was wrong I will run Ad-aware next time I am up there to see if that helps. I have already tried deleting and reinstalling the dial-up connection, but I forgot to try reinstalling TCP/IP, so I'll try that too.

Thanks for the help guys! If you get any more ideas, let me know.

 

[TheGrandHooHa]

Bump ... See the updated information in the initial post.

 

[redbeard1]

I've had really good look using the first repair suggestion on this page. The main thing seems to be when you delete the winsock2 registry key. There are links to a couple of repair tools on this page also, though I haven't tried them.

Fixes

 

[TheGrandHooHa]

Thanks for the link redbeard. I'll try that out tomorrow, but that first fix is exactly the symptom I am having. Wish me luck!

 

[TheGrandHooHa]

redbeard1, you are a God. That page completely fixed the problem. Thanks a lot!